Nas Trincheiras do Látex: segunda Guerra Mundial nos Trópicos e a Batalha (1939 – 1945)

Abstract

This paper aims to understand how the process of economic exploitation of rubber occurred in the Amazon region, in particular the “Battle of Rubber” and the emergence of “Rubber Soldiers”. We realized that the government created a war speech and the battle inside the rubber plantations gained a great importance in the commotion in the country, so that the war efforts were always gaining strength among the population, that cutting the syringe was indispensable to win the war. This created a particular concern to understand this idea of the “Battle of Rubber” and “Rubber Soldiers”. The work also shows that the government created the “Rubber Battle” in order to promote the mobilization, recruitment and displacement of Northeasterners to the Amazon, these men were already coming as “Rubber Soldiers” and to work on the war front in the rubber tree to extract the latex. The methodology used in this work was a bibliographical research, through the analysis of authors who work exclusively with the processes of latex extraction in the Amazon. This work showed that in the context of the Great War, the Brazilian government produced a war speech focused on the latex economy, where the rubber tree came to be faced with a war front and those who extracted the latex as “Rubber Soldiers” in that war. Which refers to the articulation created and existing between the Brazilian government and the USA, in this context of war. Moreover this research also sought to show that with the end of World War II, the Americans after recovering the rubber plantations of Asia, lost interest in the Amazonian rubber plantations, which consequently caused the abandonment of the “Rubber Soldiers”, who were left to their own devices rubber plantations and who were not recognized for their war efforts and their recognized rights.